“The reason is simple - the (annual) discussion of the (US) military budget in Congress for the next year.”

The nonexistent “ ‘Russian threat’ has been the best-selling threat delivered by the Pentagon not only to Congress, but also to NATO partners since the middle of the previous century.”

Pentagon commanders hype it repeatedly, the best way they’re able to get whatever they want, including for boondoggle projects over the years wasting trillions of dollars. So-called “defense spending” is notorious for waste, fraud and abuse.

Sergey Lavrov earlier blasted “the worldview of (America claiming) its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of UN Security Council resolutions or other” legal justification.